


Truth Hurts

by legendofthesevenstars



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: 5+1 Things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 12:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20930288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendofthesevenstars/pseuds/legendofthesevenstars
Summary: Five times Allen divulged his deepest secret, and the one person to whom he can't bring himself to tell it.





	Truth Hurts

1.

Millerna stands before him, hands laced below her waist, mouth a thin line. Allen stands before Scherazade, hands at his sides, mirroring her solemnity.

The pale blonde hair and the violet eyes, her perfect round face echo Marlene’s beauty, just as her willful spirit and obstinacy reflect something in the Aston sisters that must have been instilled in them from their late mother—the old man wouldn’t have raised such rebellious royalty. Yet Millerna is not Marlene. His name may sound lovely on her tongue, but cannot match Marlene’s melodic voice. The kisses are as clumsy and awkward as those between him and Marlene, but without the yearning burn in his chest and soul.

He could never hurt her in the same way he hurt Marlene. But the truth still hurts.

“It’s about Princess Marlene, isn’t it?”

2.

Hitomi is different, in a way he never expected.

With Marlene, he was punched in the gut—overwhelmed by emotions—as soon as he laid eyes on her, and that punch in the gut set the tone for the rest of their relationship. With Hitomi, it was more like chipping away at a rock until something wonderful yet imperfect remained. His relationship with Marlene had never been perfect either. Not just its ending in sin, but how naive he had been, a barely-grown adult asking her to explain manners and religion to him, a foreigner to his own homeland. But his second biggest mistake was never telling her about himself.

He chipped away at that rock little by little. He gave away pieces of himself, searching for something deeper. Why did he not feel as if Hitomi were searching for him? Did she want to know him? Was he mistaken? With Marlene, he had drawn ever more inside himself, but had given his body up to her. With Hitomi, he gave everything but his body. He can no longer give it away so easily.

She stands there in the moons’ light wringing her hands. Up until now, telling her things has been so easy. The truth will not hurt her nearly as much as it hurt Millerna. But they are nearly the same words, and so they will still hurt.

“Before I go, there’s something I want you to hear.”

3.

Atlantis was hardly the time or place to confess the sins he had committed against Asturia and the Schezar name. Would Father have even cared to talk about it? And what would Mother think? No one has shown him sympathy for his secret, and he doesn’t expect anyone to, not even Mother.

If Father does know, he must be laughing bitterly, or perhaps shaking his head at the coincidences of their lives. His life was a cautionary tale of which his son failed to take heed. The reckless Schezar spirit flows in his and Celena’s blood, and there was no use resisting the precedent set by their wandering father. By now, the _Crusade_ has likely flown further than Father’s leviship ever had, and Celena saw the world from the windows of a floating fortress.

If Mother knows, he’s sure she’s hanging her head. He was still a child when she died, but out of love he acted properly and carried himself well for the sake of the Schezar name. And he believed in her promise that he would one day meet a woman whom he would love and marry, and that she would bear his child. Except for the marriage part, those things had happened. But he’d done it all wrong. So, so wrong.

Still, he feels compelled to tell his parents, particularly after his conversation with Father. Standing in front of their graves, he bows his head and addresses them, then begins his speech.

“It all started just after I was accepted as a Knight Caeli…”

4.

After practicing on his parents, he decides to tell Celena. She won’t judge him on his lack of morality. It’s more likely that she’ll be surprised, wondering why he never told her about her nephew. He can deal with surprise, but even if she doesn’t judge him, he still won’t forgive himself.

Celena visits Mother and Father with him, too. As much as she wants to forget and move on from her time as another person, it was all she had for ten years. Stuck in limbo, she suffers. Comparing his burdens to hers is impossible. Not because she has suffered more, which she has, but because they have suffered differently. She doesn’t know who she is, period. He just doesn’t know who he is if he doesn’t have someone to love.

He let too many loved ones leave him: Father, Mother, Marlene, Millerna, Hitomi. And he’d be damned if he let another one go. So to get Celena to stay until she’s well enough to think about leaving, he tries to have open, honest conversations with her. About the past, so that she understands what happened. And now that she knows about Father and Mother, it’s only appropriate to tell her about her nephew.

“Do you remember the Duchy of Freid?”

5.

Opening up is much easier in letters. Perhaps because words flow more easily from a pen, or perhaps it’s because he doesn’t have to look anyone in the eye. He can merely imagine their reactions without being subjected to them. Writing it down hurts less, both for him and, he imagines, for the recipient.

He spent much of his late teens writing letters to his old mentor Balgus, nearly all of which he tore up and threw out afterward. And why Balgus? Well, he was never shocked. He took everything with a straight face, so Allen never had to picture expressions of disappointment (though he was certain everything about his relationship with Marlene would be met with disapproval by anyone).

Lately, especially after Hitomi, expressing himself in writing is harder. Now he prefers talking in person, instead of anxiously awaiting a reply. And after maintaining his friendship with Van through letters, and reminiscing about the good times they spent together with Hitomi and the others, he feels ready to tell him.

He wouldn’t dare tell any of his other friends and acquaintances. Eries, of course, already knows. He’s close to Gaddes, so he considered telling him, but there’s still a professional sort of distance between them, and he doesn’t even know about Marlene. But Van, he feels, would understand. Perhaps their shared connection to Balgus makes Allen feel safer about telling the truth. Not to mention his understanding of Hitomi’s ability to get people to open up to her. He wants to show Van, and show Hitomi, that he’s changed, that he can be vulnerable.

“I want to tell you something important…”

+1.

This isn’t easy.

Three or four words are all it would take, yet he cannot bring himself to write them. He keeps getting tripped up on the formal introduction, which in any other letter is second nature to him; his hands shake and slip, and the ink smears, and he crumples the paper and tries again, lips pursed. Closing his eyes and writing blindly would make no difference, for with his eyes shut the words haunt him even more.

Why had it been so easy to face the boy in person? When he first awoke in Freid and touched his arm for the first time, his heart swelled with emotion. A real, tangible child in front of his eyes, the boy he had fathered, his son. And yet, not his son at all. His son in appearance only. Why should he ever consider Allen his father, when the late Duke had raised him? It didn’t matter that his son was blonde and the Duke was brown-haired. It didn’t matter that the Duke was firm and stoic and his son was gentle yet stubborn—like his mother, clearly an Aston child.

And what makes Allen want to claim him anyway, when he knows he can’t be there for him? Not because he is occupied with Celena’s welfare, but rather because it is a dishonor to the memory of the man who forgave his trespass against Asturia. Allen had seen the compassion gleaming underneath that stoic surface, a concealed softheartedness reminiscent of Balgus. The Duke was a little harsher than Balgus, which Allen hadn’t considered possible, yet that look he gave Allen upon his death was so tender that his heart breaks every time he remembers it.

Duke Freid loved his son. Allen loves Chid.

He crumples the thirtieth draft, sullied by an inkblot, and, crossing his arms on his mother’s desk, lowers his head into them to cry.


End file.
